Dear Dad,
Mom is on her way here to Portland right now, as I type this letter. She’ll be here, in fact, by dinner. Or long before dinner, actually, if I don’t get started on it soon.
I know it’s not your favorite thing when she’s away, that you get lonely bumming around the house with only Greta for company. I feel the same way when Will’s gone. Like you, I stay up far too late and get caught up in work when there’s no one there to remind me to stop and call it a night. Last week I reorganized the linen closet when Will had to pull a late night at work to keep myself busy. There may also have been some studying procrastination going in, my current read being the oh, so exciting Understanding MARC Bibliographic, but there was some keep busyness about it too. So I know.
But oh, I love it when she’s here. When either or both of you are here. It seems very strange but, the older I get, the more I want my parents near me. You know me. I did not really go through a rebellious phase, I never felt the desperate need to be far far away from my parents. Rather, I think I was independent, something you both taught me to be, and it was that which led me to roam further and further from home. I’m still independent. But at the same time, I need my mom (and dad, of course).
Perhaps, now that I really think about it, it’s less about need than about want. I want to be around my family. I want to sit on the couch and talk about things we heard on NPR or saw in the neighborhood or about that latest weird Swedish TV show you’ve got me watching. I want to drink innumerable cups of tea and eat too many cookies and stay up late talking, instead of working or studying. Because, while I’ll always be your little girl, I think we are growing toward each other, and instead of father or mother and child, we are friends. And isn’t that a lovely thought.
I wish you were here to enjoy the weekend (although not the weather since it’s typical Oregon spring rain and gloom outside right now) but since you aren’t, I know you’ll forgive me for being happy that she’s here, instead of there, if only for the weekend.
-Gillian